


Penknife demon

by cian1675



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Myungsoo's the architecture student, Supernatural Elements, dongwoo is mentioned, myungyeol as best friends, semi-architecture student AU, sungyeol is the main character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 00:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9296609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cian1675/pseuds/cian1675
Summary: On hindsight, picking up a penknife from the architecture studio on the last day of school hadn’t been his brightest idea. Hell, Sungyeol wasn’t eveninarchitecture. To this day, he wonders how different his life would have been if he hadn’t picked up that penknife while waiting for Myungsoo to be done packing his stuff from studio.





	

On hindsight, picking up a penknife from the architecture studio on the last day of school hadn’t been his brightest idea. Hell, Sungyeol wasn’t even _in_ architecture. To this day, he wonders how different his life would have been if he hadn’t picked up that penknife while waiting for Myungsoo to be done packing his stuff from studio.

 

 

<< 

 

 

It started like this.

Myungsoo was going to treat him dinner. Said it’s some celebration for him completing his second year in architecture. Sungyeol doesn’t know why that’s something worth celebrating – he’s in his third year of _pure_ physics and never felt the need for any celebration – but he would never turn down free food. So Sungyeol had made his way to the drab grey thing passing for a building, and waited for Myungsoo to be done with his final crit so they could go for dinner. He had been bored, and somehow Sungyeol found himself wandering around as he waited. That was how Sungyeol first saw it.

The penknife.

It wasn’t anything special, just a thin white metal penknife. But it was the only thing left in the now empty room, scraps of paper and random food wrappers on the floor aside, and that had caught Sungyeol’s attention for some reason. Before he knew it, the penknife was in his hand, and Sungyeol had barely turned it over to check for any markings – any signs of its owner – when Myungsoo suddenly latched on to him from behind.

“Yeol, I’m finally done! Can we go for dinner now? I’m so hungry.”

Sungyeol had been surprised, turning around to pat Myungsoo’s shoulder.

“Yah, I was waiting forever, and now you complain you’re hungry? I’m so going to eat your wallet thin today!”

Then, Sungyeol had pushed Myungsoo the whole way out of the mostly empty studio they had been in, completely forgetting about the penknife until later.

 

 

>> 

 

 

“Sungyeol, what the hell? What are you doing?”

At Sunggyu’s exclamation, Sungyeol drops the penknife from his hand. It lands on the floor with a clink, and they both simultaneously cringe.

“Sorry, hyung. I couldn’t find my nail clipper.”

It’s a shitty reason, but Sungyeol doesn’t think he deserves the look of wrath he’s getting.

“What the hell, Sungyeol. Cutting your nails with a penknife is bad enough, but did you have to use the blade to dig the dirt out from under your nails too? That’s just…”

“Disgusting?” Sungyeol fills in. Sunggyu gives him an unamused glare, and Sungyeol picks the penknife up from the floor. “Unhygienic?”

Sunggyu stares at him a little more, before he sighs. “The word you’re looking for is _dangerous_.”

Sungyeol blinks. Then –

“Are you concerned? Is that what this is?”

Sunggyu freezes for a while, but then he scoffs. “As if I’ll be fazed if you bleed.” Before Sungyeol can say anything, Sunggyu gets out of his room. When he slides the penknife blade out again, it’s completely blunt.

 

 

<< 

 

 

After dinner with Myungsoo, Sungyeol had been too full to move. Still, he needed to change, so Sungyeol had been emptying his pockets. Tissue, coins and random things he forgot he had stuffed into his back pocket. But then, his fingers nicked themselves on something sharp.

“Ouch, what the hell?” Sungyeol had gasped the same time someone said –

“What kind of lousy blood is this?”

Sungyeol had been standing alone in his room before, but for some reason, there was suddenly a man in front of him. He had done the only logical thing then.

He screamed.

 

 

>> 

 

 

“Sunggyu hyung…”

“What?”

Sungyeol waited until Sunggyu turned around before he held out the penknife.

“Can you make it sharp again?”

Sunggyu’s already narrow eyes grow narrower. He crosses his arms. “Why?”

Sungyeol looks away sheepishly. He holds out the packet of chips in his other hand. There’s a short moment of silence, and then Sunggyu inhales sharply.

“Fucking hell, Sungyeol, the penknife is not meant to cut open food packaging!”

Sungyeol tries to back away.

 

 

<< 

 

 

It had taken ten minutes before Sungyeol managed to figure out why there was a strange guy – a strange guy dressed in freaking _robes_ like he was the Grim Reaper or something – in his dorm room. And then it took another hour on the phone with Myungsoo before he was even half-convinced that he hadn’t just fainted and dreamt this whole thing up while he was actually unconscious.

“So you’re telling me, that this dude in my room now, this dude is a freaking demon?”

“Penknife familiar,” Myungsoo corrected, and Sungyeol felt a dull ache starting between his eyes.

“Whatever, same difference. He’s bounded to the penknife, he manifests when the penknife first draws blood, and then he sticks around until he helps you finish… something…? Sounds like a demon and a demon deal to me,” Sungyeol said. He tried not to look at the strange dude still in a corner of his room as he said it, but of course, the guy still heard it.

“I can go if you want.”

Sungyeol was still pretending the guy didn’t exist, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t happy to hear that. “Uh Myungsoo, the demon says he can go if I want him to. Can I do that? I don’t need a demon in my room.”

But then, of course, Myungsoo had to ruin the moment.

“Well, he can go, but he would still be bounded to you until he helped you finish something you really want to do.”

 So, basically, Sungyeol was fucked from that moment onwards.

 

 

>> 

 

 

“Are you sure you don’t have something I can actually help you do?” Sunggyu asks, setting rice and side dishes down on Sungyeol’s table. Before Sungyeol can say anything, he adds, “And I don’t mean making food for you, because I already do that. I mean, is there something I can actually help you with that you _really_ want?”

Sungyeol only has one thing he really wants, but he can’t say it. So instead, he pulls Sunggyu down to sit beside him. “Feed me?” he jokes.

Sunggyu stares at him with a raised brow, but then, he picks up the spoon.

“You have hands, you know,” Sunggyu mumbles but neatly stacks kimchi and egg onto rice before he turns the spoon towards Sungyeol.

Sungyeol laughs. “Yeah, I know.” He leans over to eat the big spoonful Sunggyu has for him. “But I also have you.”

Sunggyu rolls his eyes.

“Just… eat. Don’t talk so much.”

And then there’s a big piece of egg roll stuffed into Sungyeol’s mouth, and Sungyeol can’t say anything more even if he wanted to.

 

 

<< 

 

 

“Okay, Myungsoo, maybe I should have asked you this earlier, but what the hell is a penknife demon and how the heck did I pick one up?”

Myungsoo eyed him from across the table, dark circles still visible although he had clearly slept in since crit last night.

“Did you take a penknife from the studio yesterday?”

Sungyeol recalled the white penknife in the empty studio. He had found it in his back pocket yesterday, after he chased the demon dude away. “Yeah. Why?”

Myungsoo slumped in his seat. “That’s your answer.”

Sungyeol didn’t comprehend. “What?”

Myungsoo sighed like it was obvious. “Dude, all the students in architecture school have one. How else do you think we finish our projects in time?”

Sungyeol still didn’t get it. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, people don’t talk about it, but there’s this shop near school that sells penknives –”

“The one with demons in them?”

“Yeah, those. Archi students who are in need of help would buy one, feed the penknife with a drop of their blood, and they basically get a free helper until their project is done.”

That sounded weird and creepy as hell. “What do they get out of it?” Sungyeol asked.

“Who?” Myungsoo blinked.

“The demons.” Sungyeol thought it was a pretty obvious question, but apparently not.

Myungsoo tilted his head, looking up at nothing. Then, he answered slowly, “…I don’t know. I could ask Dongwoo for you next time.”

Sungyeol’s brain took a while to catch up, but eventually he _realised_. “Oh my god, Myungsoo, you have a penknife demon?”

Myungsoo blinked at him, so genuinely innocent, Sungyeol couldn’t even get upset that his best friend had never told him this before. “Uh, technically, I guess? But we’re more friends, really.”

In that instance, Sungyeol wondered what had suddenly happened to his life. You know, the _great_ life he had been living before he got himself a penknife demon and a best friend who apparently was friends with another penknife demon. That was all gone now.

“Great…”

 

 

>> 

 

 

“Can you give me a massage? My back’s all stiff,” Sungyeol says later, after he washes the dishes. Sunggyu puts down the book he had been reading, and walks over.

“You should just stop sitting in front of the computer or poring over those thick textbooks all the time. Then your back wouldn’t be so stiff,” Sunggyu chides, but he still puts his heads onto Sungyeol’s back and kneads. The tension slowly eases out of his muscles.

“Well. If I did that, I wouldn’t have things to request of you,” Sungyeol says. He uses a light tone, but Sunggyu still stops in his massaging, lightly smacking a hand on the side of his head.

“Seriously, Sungyeol, how many times have I told you? It needs to be something you _really_ want. Not any simple request would do.”

Sungyeol rubs the spot Sunggyu just hit. “Well, what if that one simple request turns out to be _the one_? Hmm?”

Sunggyu closes his eyes. Sighs. “It doesn’t work that way. I know these little requests aren’t what you really want.”

Sungyeol shouldn’t ask, but he’s curious. “How do you know?”

Sunggyu opens his eyes to look at him. His gaze is piercing. “I just do.”

 

 

<< 

 

 

“Soo, what did Dongwoo say?”

Sungyeol had been curious, and maybe calling his friend at three in the morning wasn’t the best way to get a response, but he had only seen the message Myungsoo sent him just now.

“Yeol? Sorry, I was catching up on sleep. Hmm, Dongwoo said that they’re freed when they complete the request. Once they finish helping the person whose blood was given to the penknife, they are no longer bounded to that person. They would also no longer be tied to the penknife.”

Sungyeol’s grip on his phone tightened without him realising. “Does that mean they’re basically free men then? And that they can do whatever they want?”

Myungsoo yawned on the other side of the phone. “Hmm, yeah. Basically.”

 

 

>> 

 

 

See the thing is, Sungyeol knows what he really wants. But he’s not sure if he can have it. Still, Sungyeol’s curious. Curious enough to ask.

“Sunggyu hyung…”

“What?”

“You said you know these requests aren’t what I really want. So… do you know what I really want?”

Sunggyu blinks. Then averts his eyes. “I’m… not entirely sure.”

Sungyeol licks his lips. They’re suddenly dry, because he never thought he would do this. Sure, he always claims that picking up the penknife hadn’t been his brightest idea, but this here, what he’s about to do, _this_ is hands down his worst idea yet.

“Do you know what happens after you grant my request?”

Sunggyu turns back to look at him. “Yeah…?”

“You’ll no longer be bounded to me, or the penknife. You’ll be free.”

 “Yeah.”

Sunggyu’s voice is quiet. Sungyeol doesn’t know what to make of it. But maybe deep down he knew he couldn’t keep doing this. Sungyeol opens his mouth before he could change his mind.

“But what if my request is for you to stay with me? What will happen?”

For the longest time, Sunggyu doesn’t say anything. Sungyeol thinks he’s definitely fucked things up now. He’s slumped on the bed, not daring to even look at Sunggyu after that stupid thing he just said, but then, Sunggyu clears his throat.

“Is that what you really want?”

Sungyeol feels ridiculous for having even asked. But he doesn’t like to lie.

“…Yeah. It’s an oxymoron though. You can’t fulfill it and be free afterwards.”

Sungyeol keeps his head down, but then a hand is on his cheek, gently tilting his head up.

“But what if I want to stay? Even when I’m free. Will that work?”

Sungyeol’s not sure if he heard right.

“What…?”

“I mean, I’ve wanted to stay with you too. I didn’t like you at first, but… I don’t dislike you, even if you use the penknife for the weirdest shit –”

“When I say stay, I don’t just mean literally staying here in my dorm,” Sungyeol starts, but then Sunggyu’s leaning forward, wrapping his arms around his neck.

“I didn’t mean a literal ‘stay’ either, idiot.”

Maybe he’s really not that bright, because he did pick up that strange penknife from studio, but Sungyeol doesn’t mind being called an idiot if it’s from Sunggyu. Doesn’t mean he had to let him know though.

“Hey –” Sungyeol begins, but the rest of the sentence gets muffled when Sunggyu presses a finger to his lips.

“You talk too much.”

And then Sunggyu replaces his finger with his lips, and Sungyeol doesn’t feel so bad that his life’s different since the day he found that penknife. He could live with this.

On hindsight, maybe picking up a penknife from the architecture studio on the last day of school _had_ been one of his better ideas.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a random thing I wrote and edited in 3 (ish) hours because of [this thing](http://stillcian1675.tumblr.com/post/155381200361/penknives-the-architecture-students-familiar) I was talking about with my friend. Let me know what you think!


End file.
